by Melanie Wong

Out from the dark and into the light: Six of Broadway's premier musicians left the depths of their homes in NYC's theater pits for the Broadway Chamber Players' debut concert, "A Woodwind Celebration," last Thursday night at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The evening was utterly New York: plagued by sauntering pedestrians, towers of scaffolding in every corner due to renovations, a supreme lack of heating on an icy night, and screaming sirens (that were at least kind enough to stay on pitch and in rhythm). Luckily, the music was also what you'd expect to hear in the city—heaping with personality and thoroughly top-notch in unity, balance, and pitch.

The players showcased their naturally flowing musicality from the start, with a light reading of Jacques Ibert's energetic wind quintet Trois pièces brèves before moving on to two arrangements by co-founder and flutist John Romeri: Boccherini's Musica Notturna delle Strode di Madrid and Debussy's Deux Arabesques. Romeri turned out to be the star of the show: his brilliant artistry and expressive imagination came through in his unique uses of tone color; and, as host for the evening, he charmingly delivered crisp informational interludes between each piece.